ACY Base
 

Any details on this base? Senior, junior, small, big, shrinking, growing, etc.

110 out of 2650 pilots based there. Captains are senior, FOs are junior. It's known as the country club. Flights are up and down the east coast (mostly). I don't think they do much int'l or west coast (no red-eyes). Everyone knows everyone.

So, upgrade there would be a lengthy endeavor, I would guess.

Not too much difference in upgrade time but you'll be on reserve longer than other bases.

Interesting. Normally, I would think of a junior FO base as a base where FO’s are constantly bidding out.

Possible thread dev, but with Spirit being the #3 out if ATL, is there any rumblings of making it a pilot domicile?

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none at all. If we ever see another base it’ll be BWI

One follow up question: For a guy within an 1+45 of ATL, which base will be best for a commuter?

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From a purely commute standpoint, it’s hard to beat MCO and FLL. Both have 4 airlines serving the route, and a flight nearly every hour all day long, several on our own metal. Type of trips and hotel/crashpad costs and availability is another subject that I can’t answer. Someone on reserve vs. a line holder will have very different experiences and needs in that regard.

Top 50% of Captains have been here 14 or more years. Bottom 50% of Captains have been here from 11 years down to 5 years as the most junior. There are probably several pilots who are Captains in other bases who would transfer back to ACY if the base grew, but it is extremely slow growth (think only a few Captain positions added per year). These guys/gals can hold a better schedule in other bases. Some guys eventually pack up and move to a different base.

As for FO’s, the bottom 25 percent may be a revolving door but the next 50 percent are mid level FO’s. The top 25 percent could currently be or within the next 6 months hold a Captain slot somewhere in the system.

Overall, it’s a good base but the movement is slow.

Can Chimpy chime in as well?

If NK could get more gates at ATL I could see it being a base. Delta doesn’t give up those gates easily, so it’s an uphill battle for sure. Our flights are always full out of Atlanta though. Just my .02!

Great base :). You park your car and you’re at the gate in literally 6 minutes. Never any delays. The bad? Ive been here 8+ years and can’t even come close to holding weekends off on Reserve and have to bid a line to hold certain days off which seems like it should be opposite. (May be like that in other bases I’m not sure). There is ZERO OPEN TIME. Literally zero. We have a few CA’s who don’t want to sit RSV in ACY so they bid to ORD/MCO/FLL and drop those trips then pick up the scrap in ACY (totally within their right, I don’t mind) but makes it very difficult to improve your schedule or trips. Also, may be why never add any ACY CA vacancies? Not sure how they come up with those numbers but if there is never any OT there really isnt a need for more Ca?s unless they do it via some block hour calculation, I dunno. Also grid is always green so you can drop 99% of the time. One would think that means RSVs dont really fly, but we get hauled off to BWI all the time then get the ole triple DH back to base.


sorry for the horrendous grammar and run on sentences.

Do you know the definition of "literally"? There are literally 5 trips sitting in captain open time for May right now, and there were tons more at the onset of initial and daily open time. I guess you're dreaming of "you know what" and not thinking.

While your at it, pick up the trip on the 6th so I don't have to do it :)

we will let you go with a warning this time but next time there are some people on here that won’t let you off the hook that easy.

I’m going to pick it up and 47:59 prior to the 6th I’m drop it so you are stuck with it. And at this time there are now 4 trips and one is a day trip on Sunday with the General :) and the rest are trash. You get the point.

and who are you kidding with the “onset of open time” it’s tough to do anything when Flica won’t let you even attempt to swap until 12:06 and the BOTs already have 100’a of trades in. You have to wait hours to see what worked and what didn’t.

So "literally zero" doesn't actually mean zero. Gotchya...

anything less than 5 is basically literally zero 😁

agreed. I look at acy open time and can only imagine if we had a bunch of small bases. Scary

Well, there are a number of ATL guys I've met who'd disagree, but as Meep said, it's largely a matter of gate availability. Kind of obnoxious how the Big 3 hold them hostage at all the major airports the way they do. But that's another can of worms.

Rumblings have included BWI, ATL, maybe even IAH. A distant fourth might be another West coast base like LAX, but that was all pretty speculative even pre-Covid, so don't count on anything unless it's officially announced.

Whatever happened to the BNA rumor...that would be awesome.

They announced the relocating of the OCC to BNA for better weather protection, and then a tornado immediately went through town. Shortly thereafter Covid happened and pumped the brakes on everything. A hypothetical BNA domicile was a pilot-induced-theoretical-follow-up to putting the OCC there, which still has yet to happen. Pretty far down the list of speculative NK bases, but who can say?

The second OCC is going to MCO, already announced. BNA is not happening.

I hate to stoke the rumor fire, but as far as bases go, apparently BWI was a no and a LAX domicile would absolutely be open right now if not for covid

None of this is true. The company is going through a base evaluation in the fall and a new domicile in the NE (BWI or ACY/PHL) is the only consideration right now according to JM.

FWIW, JM stopped by a recurrent class a few weeks back and stated what Slowhawk has written.

Lax is the only new base I’d welcome bc I think it’s the only base that would pull senior folks.

Maybe. It’d probably thin out LAS a bit.

As long as you are dreaming:

SLC is in the middle of an extensive expansion.

https://www.internationalairportrevi...-aviation-hub/

Yeah, I know, NK doesn’t even fly there, but it would be a great place to fly to in skiing season and could be a stepping stone for further expansion throughout the West, freeing up LAS (and potentially LAX) for ETOPS stuff further West yet. (Hey, a 321 NEO could do it. Wouldn’t even need to be an LR).

And that WOULD pull all those senior former Skywest people ;) out of LAS.

SLC and ANC are definitely next. I have read this article before and this is right up Spirits alley. They love looking and places with this type of growth and expansion.

Can also say JM told us in ground, planning is evaluating bases, only consideration is in the NE and any decisions will be made based largely on real estate availability.

I take that to mean: EWR if we end up with a bunch of gates, but that's a wish. Possibly PHL if we end up with more gates, but that's a less likely wish, or BWI, where we could add 50 flights tomorrow and the airport could accomodate us. Legacies are dug in at IAD and DCA and dont really mess around with BWI clientele or compete on price with themselves with their other DC metro ops, though they all dabble there. There are also income demographics and operating costs at play here. Ranking cost per airports, MCO, FLL, and LAS are all top five most affordable airports. BWI is top 10 and LAX is top 25. On the expensive side, DFW ranks top 10, DTW not far behind, while EWR is most expensive and PHL and ATL are not far behind.
Mgmt wants low sticker price. We dont fly to YMNN because taxes are 50% of the airfare. Doesnt matter that every other airline also has to deal with that cost. They have an idea of what they want for fares, and high costs prohibit that. I surmise the only two real choices for a base at this time, if any, are BWI and LAX. That said, it's also an argument for why ACY works so well. Full planes, lost cost, no phl traffic. LAX is still tough because there's not enough flying in the west to support multiple red eye bases at this time imo. Too inefficient. Add five or six more west coast cities then maybe. Mgmt loves the 1000nm stage length, and bwi is far better positioned to accomodate that given the current network.

Thoughts?

For your health

Maybe. What you’re saying makes sense but there is a huge market (travel destination and large population center) in SoCal and plenty of city pairs out of there that we don’t currently serve as well. Gate space is constrained but if they can pull something out of their hat in regards to gates I could see having a base there. BWI is probably most likely though.

I've heard it first hand from JM that EWR is out of the equation, but if we win this lawsuit and end up with a bunch of prime EWR slots and another gate or two I would think that would probably be reconsidered. Plus there's the LGA expansion. I think in a perfect world they'd close ACY and open both BWI and EWR, but that's probably not the cheapest way to go.

We need more west expansion. PHX for example is the 5th largest city in the US and no one in that city even knows we fly there.

Using city population statistics doesn’t paint a full picture (they separate Dallas & Ft. Worth). You need to look at largest metro areas.

Ok, Phoenix is number 10 by that metric. It is odd how little of a role Spirit plays in the air travel out here.

Yet frontier keeps adding routes out PHX and rumored to be a domicile soon. I don’t understand why we don’t connect Phx to LAS and somewhere in Florida. The connections are very limited with that awful Dallas flight.

I would suggest that the semi affluent retired crowd that makes up much of PHX’s travel crowd isn’t one of our targeted demographics. And that’s who’s largely traveling to PHX when it’s not roasting for half of the year.

Agreed, think the only people clamoring for more PHX flights are people who live in/around PHX.

funny you say that. Obviously anecdotal but my wife’s boss (very affluent.... prominent surgeon) flies to PHX regularly and only flies Spirit. XD